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    I agree and I personally find the idea of 'committing' in scrum to be inefficient. You are forced to structure your work around an arbitrary timeline in order to make this work. Effectively you end up with a bin packing problem. The only realist way for everyone to finish what they commit every Sprint is to commit to less than what they can accomplish in an average Sprint. I like to use the Sprint schedule for reassessing direction and house-keeping. Nothing more. Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 18:56
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    Which is why scrum.org changed their terminology from "commitment" to "forecast" in 2011. Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 23:34
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    I like this answer, but I'd add that sprints with a time-based forecast can be a useful way to balance the velocity-based development process with external time-based business needs. If you can maintain a reputation for reasonably reliable time-based forecasts for sprints, you can use that to communicate your plans to business owners and justify the timing and prioritization of tasks based on business priorities. Of course, if your forecast has never been right in 18 months, your reputation is worse than the weatherman. Whether it's worth improving your forecasts or giving up is up to you. Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 1:58
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    I've worked for a company which was succeeding while never completing the planned content of a sprint, and we DID switch to Kanban instead. That made everything a lot smoother. Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 2:48
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    @SteveJessop, wow, they sure haven't publicized that very well. None of the "scrum masters" I've worked around for the past five years have ever mentioned it. Maybe they intentionally haven't mentioned it. Commented Apr 14, 2016 at 18:23